COLLECTIVE WORSHIP IN LEICESTER SCHOOLS: STATEMENT FROM SACRE

The Leicester City SACRE and Leicester City RE Consultant recognise that part of their role is to provide guidance and support for schools of effective provision for Collective Worship and support for determinations following the requirements set out in 1944 (and amended in 1988). Daily collective worship is a duty on schools and our council’s view would always be to meet the legal requirements.

The requirements for collective worship as a school activity are both different and distinct from the requirements regarding RE in the curriculum.

The Leicester SACRE is aware that the requirements for collective worship are not now being followed in all our schools, especially secondary schools, for a variety of reasons, including lack of suitable spaces and/or leaders for collective worship. Many of our secondary schools hold weekly collective worship and on the other days have a “Thought for the Day” with an opportunity for short, quiet time of reflection. This has been reported regularly by Ofsted over the years. However, this does not mean that schools have not provided opportunities for the spiritual and moral development of young people, many good examples of which Ofsted have also reported in the past year:

“Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is outstanding. Pupils make excellent contributions to the school and wider community, for example taking responsibility for helping teachers to identify in assemblies those pupils who demonstrate good listening skills.” (Abbey Primary school)

At Sparkenhoe Junior school the effective development of spirituality was commended:

“There is a suitably strong emphasis on developing pupils’ personal, social, emotional and moral development which results in Year 6 pupils being thoughtful, mature and responsible young people whose spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding is excellent.”

Judgemeadow Community College was praised to the excellent spiritual development which was integrated into every subject:

“Students; spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is outstanding. There are very good opportunities for students to develop their creativity, celebrate their cultural heritage and broaden their cultural experience through contact with artists, musicians and writers.”

The SACRE has only one statutory duty with regard to collective worship. It is to grant a determination to a community school where it is felt collective worship of “a broadly Christian character” is not appropriate for all or some pupils. The application comes from the head teacher after proper consultation with staff, governors and parents. It must be accompanied by alternative plans for collective worship. Currently 21 primary schools and 4 secondary schools hold determinations in Leicester City.

Leicester City determinations: Primary schools

• Abbey Primary School
• Bridge Junior
• Charnwood Primary School
• Catherine Infant
• Coleman Primary School
• Evington Valley Primary School
• Green Lane Infants
• Herrick Primary School
• Highfields primary School
• King Richard III Infant School
• Linden Primary School
• Mayflower primary School
• Medway Primary School
• Rusheymead Primary School
• Sandfield Primary School
• Shenton Primary School
• Sparkenhoe Primary School
• Spinney Hill Primary School
• Uplands Infants
• Uplands Junior School
• Wyvern Primary School

Leicester City determinations: Secondary schools

• Crown Hills Community College
• Judgemeadow community College
• Rusheymead School
• Moat Community College

HIGH SHERIFF'S CHARITY EVENT

I have the honour of being invited by the High Sheriff of Leicestershire, Resham Singh Sandhu MBE DL, to join him and his guests - chief among them being Lady Gretton, Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire - at a fund-raising event this evening in aid of Crimebeat Warning Zone, the High Sheriff's chosen charity.

There's a convivial atmosphere on what is an unseasonably warm evening (warm enough to melt the chocolates on offer). The proceedings are lent a slightly surreal air by many of the guests perching on the edges of (high quality) baths, shower stalls etc in the display areas of Plug Interiors, which is the venue for the evening.

A decent amount of money and considerable good will is raised for a good cause this evening. It's a privilege for me to play a part in that, however small.

THIS WEEK'S VISITORS (3,080)

Regular update on the number of pageviews received from different parts of the world in the week just ending.

1. United States 1,565
2. United Kingdom 621
3. France 182
4. Sri Lanka 153
5. Germany 150
6. Russia 142
7. Japan 83
8. South Korea 74
9. Brazil 72
10. Estonia 38

This week's total: 3,080 (last week's: 1,571). These are aggregates of figures from the top ten countries only. Blogger's stats software doesn't show me numbers of pageviews below the tenth-ranking country.

This is the highest number of pageviews in a single week since the blog began - as had been the number last week. This week's figure is almost double last week's. It's the first time that the USA has come out at number one, with the UK at number two. It's also the first time that any single country has topped that 1,000 figure.

The world map at the top of this post is the graphic that I see on the stats page. The darker the green, the more pageviews from that country. I can see different versions of that map for "now" (whenever that is), "today", "this week", "this month" and "all time" (which seems to mean the last 12 months). They're updated each time I look at them.

HOWEVER YOU SAY IT, IT'S TRUE: THE EARTH IS BUT ONE COUNTRY AND MANKIND ITS CITIZENS

This poster, created by one or more school pupils, is on the wall of the refurbished RED (Religion, Equality, Diversity) Learning Centre at Forest Lodge Education Resource Centre. I don't know if it's consciously based on the well-known  phrase from the writings of Bahá'u'lláh, "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens", but clearly it shares the same sentiment. The incorrect apostrophe is all its own though.

RELIGION, EQUALITY, DIVERSITY: RED LEARNING CENTRE OPENS

At Forest Lodge Education Resource Centre, Charnor Road, this afternoon, for the launch of the refurbished RED (Religion, Equality, Diversity) Learning Centre. Invitations have gone out to members of SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religions Education) and to other organisations that would have an interest in the kinds of resources available here and the system for accessing them (that includes Global Education Leicester-Shire: and thanks to Claire Plumb for the lift!). Our special guest today is the popular and successful author for children and young people, Bali Rai. Some school pupils have come along (as have some mums) just to hear him read.

Leicester City Council is officially represented by Assistant Mayor Vi Dempster, Cabinet Lead for Children and Families. Now, I've long known that Councillor Dempster is Scots (the accent gives it away) but I've never asked where she might be from, originally. So, while I'm pouring her a cup of coffee, she tells me that she was brought up in Clydebank (although she was born in Glasgow, where she spent her earliest years). Clydebank is just over the border from Knightswood on the west side of Glasgow, where I spent my first 23 years. When I tell Councillior Dempster that I did my Highers at Clydebank Technical College, it turns out that she did too! Small world, eh?

I make sure that Leicester Council of Faiths gets its own library card so we can make good use of the RED Learning Centre.

In the photo above: Councillor Vi Dempster cuts the ribbon, officially opening the RED Learning Centre.

LABOUR OF LOVE & TRUE FAITH

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Labour of love and true faith 

It’s more than a huge, impressive white limestone temple; it’s also a symbol of modern Leicester – and Britain’s biggest jigsaw. Adam Wakelin had a look round the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir off Catherine Street 

It's hard to think of a more potent, self-confident symbol of where this city has come from and what it can do. A decrepit old saucepan and former denim factory, transformed into an impossibly grand £4 million Hindu temple – bought and paid for by the community it will serve, many of whom arrived as refugees in the 1970s with little in their luggage but ambition and a desire to build a better life.

That's a pretty strong message to send out. 

One day, after Leicester's image-makers have reproduced it endlessly on glossy paper to bring in tourists and businesses, the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir may well be as ubiquitous as the Clock Tower, Curve and tree-lined New Walk – so familiar you almost stop seeing it. 

For now, though, the temple still carries the shock of the new. 

It slides, almost surreally into view, between the shops, industrial units and suburban semis of Leicester's Catherine Street. 

Surrounded by metal security fencing, not quite finished, shimmering behind a haze of dust, the temple makes your eyes boggle. 

The closer you get to its magnificent domes, pillars and intricate carvings in white limestone, the more impressive it gets. 

Sanjiv Patel, here to give me a guided tour with Nisha Popat, his fellow spokesperson for the project, points out some of the religious and cultural motifs that run through the building.Here, God is in the detail. 

Those things, says Sanjiv, gesturing to the three half-gherkin-like structures rising out of the roof, are known as shikhars. 

"They represent the mountain peaks of the Himalayas," he explains. "In Hindu tradition, the sages used to contemplate in the Himalayas." 

On top of the shikhars, peeking out from behind their protective wrapping, are gold painted pinnacles – "kalashes" – literally their crowning glories, says Sanjiv. 

The temple's six domes are called "gumats". Running along the edge of the roofline are flows of peacock tails. 

Lotus flowers and other blooms fold into one another through the stonework. 

The presence of the peacocks and lotus flowers, like everything else, are significant. Both symbolise peace and beauty in India. 

Everything was hand carved by craftsmen in Gujarat, brought over on a slow boat from India, and painstakingly assembled on site. 

"What you're looking at is basically a giant, 3D jigsaw," says project leader Divyesh Tailor. 

"The whole of this came in thousands of different pieces. It was a case of getting it all off the lorries, laying it out, working out what went where and putting it all together." 

He puffs out his cheeks. 

"It took some doing, believe me." 

We pick a path through the builders, watching our steps in the tyre troughs left by heavy machinery, and go inside. 

The wow factor doesn't stop at the door. 

A 15-metre frieze depicting Swaminarayan – a manifestation of God and the founding guru of this school of Hinduism – stretches out across the back wall of the marble-floored foyer. 

We move through to the first prayer room. The floor and walls are clad in brilliant white marble.Patterns on the ceiling draw the eye to the place where a deity will be installed. All is designed in accordance with Hindu scripture to concentrate the focus of worshippers on the deity, explains Sanjiv. 

Along the corridor, covered in underlay but not yet carpeted, is the main prayer room.In here stands a large, gilded wooden shrine or "sihasan", delicately carved with more peacock tails. 

The sihasan will house the deities – to be installed after being carried through the streets in a grand procession from Belgrave fly-over on Saturday, October 8. 

It is forbidden to take pictures anywhere inside until a consecration ceremony and the arrival of the deities. 

That will mark the building's spiritual transition from marble, limestone and mortar to a place of God. 

"It is the tradition that the deities are first to see it, so sorry, no photographs," says Sanjiv. "Not even the congregation has seen it yet. There's just been too much to do." 

Expectation has been on tiptoe for months. The sect's first temple was a modest semi on Doncaster Road. They moved into their temple in St James Street in 1980, but have long since outgrown it. 

"We've had a 30-year wait for this," says Sanjiv. "So, no corners could be cut. Everything had to be right." 

It's hard to find a fault. The building, in every sense of the word, is immense. 

The main hall, a gargantuan square space adorned with chandeliers made up of cascading lotus leaves, brings another gasp. 

The kitchens, set to be staffed by volunteers, boast facilities that would shame a top hotel.Function and form dovetail immaculately, but much still needs to be done. 

The inside and outside are what they are: works in progress. Everywhere you look, someone in a hard hat and hi-vis jacket is doing something. 

The temple will officially open on Sunday, October 9, an auspicious date chosen by the priests. Miss that date, and there won't be another one this year. 

So no pressure, then? 

"None at all," smiles Divyesh, a building surveyor and property developer, who has masterminded the temple's construction. 

It's been a challenge, he admits, one that has seen his life and business go on the back burner for almost four years. 

This, as you've already gathered, is no ordinary slot tab A into section B new-build. But the complications go well beyond load-bearing joists and putting domes on roofs. 

This is a place that has had to marry fundamental tenets of Hindu temple design – Vastu Shastra principles of directional alignments and geometrics that are laid out in the scriptures and can't be compromised – with modern, British building regulations. 

Two sets of architects have been involved: in-house BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir specialists in India – up to speed on all the religious specs – and Leicester's Kent Porter Warren Associates; experts in more secular rules and regulations. 

Countless e-mails have been bounced back and forth. 

The issue of car parking and congestion have raised some local concerns. 

There will be 100 spaces available for cars on site and nearby. 

Park and ride schemes will operate on busy festival days. Traffic won't be a problem, reassures Sanjiv. 

Getting the temple through planning took two years. 

Nature has had to be appeased by various rites carried out during the construction process. Before a digger moved in, there had to be a khatmuhurt – an inspection carried out by a priest to ensure the soil's suitability. This was followed by prayers to seek permission for the earth to be disturbed. 

A small pot, containing sacraments of five metals, was ceremonially buried under the place where the deities will sit in the main prayer room after the foundations were dug. 

This was to create an awareness that the earth is a dynamic ecosystem and man is to live harmoniously with other life forms. 

The fact that Divyesh has had to cope with all this, while bringing the temple in on time and in budget, does him great credit. If I was in charge of Leicester City Council or a PFI project, I'd give him a job now. 

"A lot of the money to build this has come from ordinary families," he says. 

"I went to one house and I could feel the springs coming through the sofa. They didn't have much, but they wrote out a cheque for £1,000. 

"They could have spent that on themselves, but they didn't. I saw it as my responsibility not to waste it." 

When all this is over, Divyesh and his family will go on a nice long holiday. 

"I'm looking forward to it," he says. "It's taken over my life and I'll be glad when it's finished."It's all been worth it, though, especially now. It's quite exciting, seeing all the plans coming to reality."

KILL LIST

Saw Kill List this evening at Phoenix Square. I've knocked myself out with the job over the past while and thought I could really do with something to blow away the cobwebs.

I've thought a lot about this film since seeing it and have much to say about it, in my alternate life as the (very) poor man's Mark Kermode - but not here. Let me put it this way. If we do the Faiths Film Festival next year and we want to put on something for the Satanists (of which there were just under 1,000 recorded in Britain in the 2001 Census) ...

DMU STUDENTS UNION COMMUNITY FAIR

Rahat Ahmad (left) and Minou Cortazzi at the Counil of Faiths stall

Today we're participating in the Community Fair at De Montfort University Students Union - a marketplace event for Freshers Week. We're up on the second floor, where it's light, bright and airy - a welcome contrast to the darker, sweatier environement in the O2 Academy at the University of Leicester, where we were yesterday.

One of the first people I see here today is Zubair Sidat (Vice President, Welfare), whom I first met during Discover Islam Week at DMU back in February. I interviewed him then and posted the video on YouTube. He's obviously been a busy man and we don't have much time to talk, but Zubair does mention that he'd like to have at least one activity in DMU during Inter Faith Week. I'm not sure whether he means the Students Union per se or the student Islamic Society - but we can get together and work that out another time.

Going around the displays, I spend some time chatting with the good people promoting Islamic Relief and have the welcome opportunity to reacquaint myself with Salim Yusuf Lorgat, their East Midlands Area Manager.

I also do the rounds with flyers for Leicester Speaks, drumming up interest and support for the launch event on Wednesday 12 October as well as for the week-long programme.

I have to say that I'm not in favour of packing up early at these events. If we're booked to be here till a certain time, I would rather be here till that certain time. I feel sorry for those visitors who turn up in good time to go round an event like this, only to find out that half the exhibitors have gone.

Oh, and that Nightline bear is here too - someone different inside (male this time, apparently yesterday at the O2 Academy in the University of Leicester it was a woman).

LEICESTER UNIVERSITY WELCOMES INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

To the University of Leicester, Percy Gee Building (aka Students' Union) this afternoon. We're supporting our friends in the International Chaplaincy with their display at the International Student Welcome Programme. I helped put up all nine banners from our exhibition in Queen's Hall, upstairs in Percy Gee on Monday morning for a couple of days of fairly relaxed engagement with new arrivals from overseas. Today everything has relocated downstairs into the O2 Academy for this more intensive marketplace event.

As well as providing information about the diverse faith communities in Leicester, we're helping offer a more personal service today, by helping students newly arrived in the city find an appropriate community with which to become involved or an accessible place of worship. I've brought with me our list of places of worship in Leicester and it helps us find the right places for a number of students who have arrived here from abroad. This printed list has been in use since 2004 (long before my arrival at Leicester Council of Faiths). Today I realise for the first time that it doesn't include any Roman Catholic churches. How can that have escaped everyone's notice for seven years? And if it has been noticed, why on earth are we still using it?

Something else I notice today is that some students who have come here from other parts of the world where they have not been used to freedom of expression and of thought appear to look on the opportunity to experiment with religion or belief the way we might more traditionally have thought of students experimenting with sex and drugs and rock’n’roll. Interesting thought …

In the photo: Council of Faiths banners on the International Chaplaincy display - Nightline Bear and friend in the foreground.

SACRE AT UPLANDS JUNIOR SCHOOL

At Uplands Junior School, Melbourne Road, Highfields, this afternoon for the scheduled meeting of Leicester SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education).

We see the results to date of a survey circulated around Leicester schools asking if they would be interested in being supported by SACRE – and, if so, what form they’d like that support to take. We have written responses from 19 schools:

• Beaumont Lodge Primary School
• Catherine Junior School
• Charnwood Primary School
• Evington Valley Primary School
• Glebelands Primary School
• Humberstone Junior School
• Inglehurst Junior School
• Lancaster Boys
• Mayflower Primary School
• Merrydale Infant School
• Mowmacre Hill Primary School
• Northfield House
• Overdale Infant School
• Queensmead C.P. School
• Rowlatts Hill Primary School
• Scraptoft Valley Primary School
• St Barnabas C.E. Primary School
• Stokes Wood Primary School
• Willowbank Children’s Hospital School at Leicester Royal Infirmary

Given the recent discussion in the Leicester Mercury about collective worship in local schools (see blogs passim), it’s appropriate that we’re presented here with a draft statement from SACRE, clarifying matters. I’m going to make that a separate blog entry in its own right: it’s too important to allow it to be buried here. Similarly, I’ve posted a separate blog entry based on a handout distributed at this meeting about the Equality Act 2010 and its impact on schools, as well as a workshop task on what makes a good SACRE member.

Under Any Other Business at the end of the meeting, I’m able to share information about forthcoming activities and events:

• Christians Aware Course on the Psalms at Christchurch;
• Philosophy Panel at St Paul’s;
• “Speedfaithing” at Phoenix Square during Leicester Speaks;
• Inter Faith Week exhibition at Highcross;
• Faiths Film Festival at Phoenix Square;
• Favourite Faith Photo exhibition at Leicester People’s Photographic Gallery.